First of all, you need to understand the tense situation at sea in that area since 1941. These are incessant provocations by Japanese ships and aircraft, shelling, sinking and detention of merchant ships. Japanese warships behaved insolently in the Sea of Okhotsk and on its coast, Japanese ships under their cover poached in our waters, landed reconnaissance groups.
It was difficult to resist them - the large warships of the Pacific Fleet were practically absent in those places, the border and patrol boats could not withstand the Japanese in open battle, moreover, the notorious neutrality, which was strictly forbidden to violate, interfered. The situation changed only by 1945 with the supply of ships and boats under Lend-Lease.
This circumstance introduced additional difficulties into the service of Kamchatka ships and boats. To these should be added the problems with the technical support of the fleet. All resources were primarily directed to the front, the border guards were supplied "on a leftover basis." But no one grumbled, realizing that it was in the west that the fate of the country and the whole world was decided. In these incredibly difficult conditions, the sailors-border guards were helped to successfully carry out the service of protecting the state border with their high professionalism - the crews of ships and boats consisted of Red Navy men, who had been called up in the pre-war period, some had already served for 11 years.
Here is just one of the many episodes of their service.
Once in the summer of 1942, a border boat, having sent another detained Japanese schooner to Petropavlovsk, entered the mouth of the Zhupanov River to replenish the supply of fresh water. And when he decided to return to the sea, it turned out that the exit from the river was blocked by two Japanese destroyers. The captain of the boat in this situation preferred to return to the previous parking lot up the river, where the Japanese ships with a larger draft could not pass. For several more hours, the destroyers were near the mouth of the Zhupanov River. Our boat managed to leave the river only after the Japanese left - there was simply no chance for a MO-4 type boat armed with 45mm cannons and heavy machine guns in a battle with destroyers.
With the transfer of hostilities to the North Pacific, the United States also stepped up. Having successfully carried out a landing operation to liberate the Aleutian Islands, the Americans equipped air and naval bases there, from which they actively fought against Japanese shipping and inflicted intensive bombing strikes on Japanese troops and fortifications in the Kuril Islands.
During the hostilities, our merchant ships, which transported cargo under Lend-Lease, also got hit.
So the cargo steamer "Dzhurma" on June 7, 1942 in the Pacific Ocean near Dutch Harbor was damaged as a result of machine-gun and cannon shelling of a group of American aircraft (shells and bullets pierced the surface of the side, a tank with oil caught fire and a fire broke out on the boat deck), 13 team members were injured;
- the cargo steamer "Odessa" - October 3, 1943 in the Pacific Ocean at the transition from Akutan to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, 300 miles from it, was damaged as a result of a torpedo hit by an American submarine, obviously S-46 (as a result of the explosion, a hole was formed in the left side in the area hold No. 5);
- tanker "Emba" - on October 14, 1944 at 6.45 in the First Kuril Strait it was damaged as a result of an attack by a single American aircraft (from the explosion of an aerial bomb in the side below the waterline, a hole was formed through which water began to flow into the hull, there was a roll, there were bullet holes), 2 team members were injured.
The nervous situation often led to incidents with mutual shelling of ships and aircraft, when it was impossible to make out who was in front of you.
In addition, apparently, American sailors and pilots were guided by the principles of "swamp them all" and "the one who shoots first is right." Mindful of the allied relations between the USSR and the United States in the last war, the Americans allowed themselves to quite freely use the airspace in the combat area, often flying over the ships and military bases of the Pacific Fleet. Speaking about this, one should not forget that the American pilots, most likely, did not think about the nuances of big politics, believing that the front-line brotherhood is above all.
But the political and military leadership of the United States already needed reasons for conflicts, and they did not have to look for them for a long time. So, from May to September 1945. 27 such facts were recorded with the participation of 86 aircraft of various types, mainly B-24 "Liberator" and B-25 "Mitchell". (Recall that the first American aircraft damaged in battles began to land on Kamchatka in 1943).
Already on May 20, 1945, anti-aircraft artillery of the Pacific Fleet near Kamchatka fired at two B-24 "Liberators" of the US Air Force. A similar incident took place in the same area on July 11, 1945. with the American P-38 Lightning. True, in both cases, the fire was not aimed at lethality, so that the US aircraft did not suffer.
This is how this battle is described in the newspaper “Border of Russia. North - East (No. 5 from 09.02.2010)
"Border patrol boats" sea hunters "PK-7 and PK-10 of the 22nd battalion of patrol boats (from the forces of the Order of Lenin of the 60th (Kamchatka) sea border detachment of the Primorsky border district) were preparing to make the transition from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to Ust- Bolsheretsk.. Early in the morning of August 6, 1945, the senior transition battalion commander, Captain 3rd Rank Nikifor Ignatievich Boyko, ascended on PK-10. After listening to the reports, he gave the command to the crews to remove from anchors.
It was necessary to go around Cape Lopatka - the southern tip of Kamchatka, which almost rested against the island of Shumshu, which was still owned by the Japanese. Japanese surface ships and submarines served here, their planes patrolled in the air. True, in the summer of 1945, the Japanese transferred the entire fleet and a significant part of the aviation from the Northern Kuriles to the south, where they fought heavy battles with the Americans. And, nevertheless, the danger of shelling and attack from the air for the border boats remained.
Already at the crossing, the radio operator of the lead boat, Chief Petty Officer Chebunin, received a radiogram transmitted from Cape Lopatka. The 1116th air defense battery of the fleet stationed there reported that two aircraft had passed over it in the northern direction. The anti-aircraft gunners did not open fire on them. By type, the observers classified the machines as American - hence allies.
On boats, planes were noticed after 12 minutes. The meeting took place in the area of Gavryushkin stone. The first was a twin-engine medium bomber. A heavy four-engined car followed. Both aircraft, painted dark green, had no identification marks. A combat alert was played on the boats. The experience of contacts with the Japanese made it necessary to prepare for big troubles when meeting with neighbors. So on that August morning it was not possible to disperse peacefully.
The first, at an altitude of about a hundred meters, the medium bomber went on the combat course. Until the last moment, the border guards who took up combat posts hoped that the pilots would fly by, therefore they themselves were in no hurry to open fire.
The plane opened fire first. Bullets and shells raised the water at the left side of the "ten", which was leading. Captain 3rd rank Boyko, who was on PK-10, was immediately killed.
"They opened fire on the bombers from all types of weapons. The planes made six calls," he wrote in a report the next day to General P. I. Zyryanov, the head of the Kamchatka border detachment, Colonel F. S. Trushin.
… The heavy bomber, following the first aircraft, also went on a combat course. Bristling with fire "sea hunters" did not allow the navigator of the plane to aim well. Three bombs fell to the side of the boats, the fourth entered the sea a few meters from the "dozen", covering the boat with a wall of water and shrapnel. The machine guns and cannons of the bombers fired heavily. Already in the first minutes of the battle, the boats received numerous holes, including below the waterline, lost their speed, and were left without radio stations damaged by shrapnel and bullets. A fire broke out under the deck of PK-7. The "sea hunter" was saved by the foreman of a group of minders, midshipman Zolotov. He descended into the blazing compartment and closed the bulkhead door and deck hatch. The fire, deprived of access to air, went out. The Red Navy sailor Dubrovny and the boatswain Midshipman Chebunin repaired the holes in the boat, located below the waterline, through which the water was gushing.
On PK-10, the wheelhouse caught fire. The fire was extinguished by the foreman of the 2nd article Klimenko and the Red Navy sailor Golodushkin. On the boat, a splinter cut off a gaff with a running Naval border flag. Red Navy Bessonov, risking his life, raised a pennant on the stern flagpole. Meanwhile, water flooded the forward engine compartment. "Hunter" only thanks to a miracle, as well as the skill and courage of the crew, managed to stay afloat. The fight lasted 27 minutes and ended at 9 hours 59 minutes.
“On PK-7 4 people were seriously wounded, 7 people lightly, including the boat commander Ovsyannikov Vasily Fedorovich. On PK-10 7 people were killed, 2 people were seriously wounded, including the boat commander Senior Lieutenant S. V. one person slightly injured
The personnel asserts that during the last approach one of the planes was hit, started to smoke and began to descend in the area of Cape Inkanyush into the depths of the peninsula, Colonel FS Trushin will complete the report to Vladivostok.
The two-engine vehicle was knocked out by the commander of the PK-7 stern gun, petty officer of the 2nd article Makarov and the sight installer, the senior Red Navy sailor Khmelevsky. The next day, the pilots of the border aviation regiment made an attempt to find the fallen car from the air. The search ended in vain."
The boats, having eliminated the damage, headed back to Petropavlovsk. The sailors who died and died from their wounds were buried in the territory of the border detachment"
The modest monument is still there, it is carefully looked after by the current generation of maritime border guards. On the right of the panel of the monument is a mosaic panel with three grieving colleagues, and on the left is a concrete slab on which a bronze plaque is carved:
Sailors-border guards who died in battles while guarding the state border on August 6, 1945:
Boyko Nikifor Ignatievich cap. 3 ranks 1915
Gavrilkin Sergey Fedorovich Art. 2 tbsp. 1919 g.
Andrianov Mikhail Nikolaevich senior 2 tbsp. 1918 g.
Tikhonov Petr Yakovlevich Art. 2 tbsp. 1917 g.
Krasheninnikov Vasily Ivanovich Art. red 1919 g.
Zimirev Andrey Ivanovich Art. red 1922 g.
Dubrovny Alexey Petrovich Art. red 1921 g.
Kalyakin Vasily Ivanovich red. 1924.
Three more Red Navy men were missing (apparently killed they fell overboard during the battle).
And two days later, the USSR declared war on Japan, and active hostilities began.
But upon a detailed examination of the materials of this incident, not everything turned out to be so simple.
d. The heroism of the Soviet border guard sailors displayed in this short battle is indisputable. Considering the fact that, according to the experience of the Second World War at sea, such battles with boats, as a rule, ended in victory for aviation. Allied naval attack aircraft could create a real barrage of machine-gun and cannon fire, which swept away all living things from the decks.
In addition, Soviet boats of the MO type were intended to perform mainly patrol, anti-submarine and escort functions, and 45-mm semi-automatic cannons with a single loading and manual supply of shells in the fight against high-speed air targets were ineffective. Nevertheless, the sailors managed to successfully fight off with fire from the DShK machine guns, although not without losses.
But the question of who attacked our border guards remained unknown for a long time. This is understandable, two days later the USSR entered the war with Japan, and a large-scale and bloody landing operation began to liberate the Kuril Islands and South Sakhalin from Japanese troops, against the background of which this event simply turned out to be a small and insignificant episode. Border boats also actively participated in the landing, some of them were killed and damaged.
Nevertheless, the question, whose planes "unmarked" attacked our ships, still remained a mystery for many people interested in the history of that war.
A number of media outlets (even in Kamchatka) reported that both boats were sunk by unknown planes. Some eyewitnesses of that battle (!), From among the sailors, believed that they were fired upon by Japanese fighters for half an hour. This could be explained if it was about the minders from the BCH-5, who were inside the hull.
According to other sources, the boats were raided by two twin-engine B-25 Mitchell bombers. This type of medium bombers most often took part in the raids on the Northern Kuriles (then where did the data on four-engine aircraft come from?).
In addition, PV-1 "Ventura" twin-engine naval aircraft and army four-engine heavy bombers B-24 "Liberator" took part in bomb assault strikes on the Kuriles.
Japanese aviation in the Kuril Islands was represented mainly by torpedo aircraft on Shumshu (12) and fighters (18) on Paramushir (search engines still find their remnants). The rest of the serviceable strike aircraft were deployed to the south, where the Americans were already fighting stubborn battles for Okinawa. Moreover, these few fighters were involved in the fight against American air raids and could hardly hunt for boats in Soviet territorial waters - they were well-versed in the terrain and knew the types of Soviet ships. And there has not yet been a war with the USSR.
The assertion that the planes were not unmarked is hardly convincing either. During a war, such things simply do not go away - all the planes of the belligerent parties always bear the identification marks of the air force of their state, numbers, letter and digital codes, clearly distinguishable from the ground, in order to exclude shelling from their troops.
It can be assumed that these were American planes that flew to bombing island fortifications and ships on Shumshu and fired at our boats by mistake, because it is difficult to determine their belonging from the flight altitude. But they did not consider it necessary to talk about this at that time - we were allies. Moreover, the facts of attacks by the Americans on Soviet troops by mistake have already taken place in Europe.
The answer to this riddle was found on one of their forums. As with most things, the response was from overseas.
In a report by senior historian at US Air Force Base Elmendorf to Russian historian K. B. Strelbitsky, copies of flight debriefs of four US Navy PB4Y-2 "Privateer" aircraft to the northern Kuril Islands dated 5 August were presented. Between the Aleuts and Kamchatka 21 hours time difference, so the flight is dated "yesterday" day. The first two aircraft (callsign-flight Able, tail numbers 86V and 92V), piloted by Lieutenants Moyer and Hofheymer, took off from the base on Shemoa Island at about 8 a.m. Aleutian time (5 a.m. on August 6 in Kamchatka) and around 12 (Aleutian time) began to descend off the coast of Kamchatka.
Both lieutenants have just retrained for this new type of aircraft and have never flown in the region. Plus, this was the first combat mission of their newly formed VPB-120 unit (bombing targets in the Kuril Islands). Just 5 days earlier, their part in full force flew to Shemoa from the training base on Widby Island in Washington state.
Despite 2500 hours of flight experience for one of the pilots, and 3100 hours for the second, it seems that that morning they "missed" and were 50 kilometers north than planned - in any case, so it is written in the post-flight report.
(In the area of Utashud Island, they were noticed by Soviet border guards; they were identified as B-24 "Liberator" planes, the fact of violation of the airspace of the USSR was reported to the authorities).
Around 12:20 (9:20 Kamchatka time) the first plane with Lieutenant Moyer at the helm, found 2 ships off the coast of Kamchatka near the island of Gavryushkin Kamen, and (assuming that it was located off the eastern coast of Paramushir) immediately attacked them. Soon Lieutenant Hofmeyer's plane joined him, but on the second approach the shooter saw Soviet flags and the commander called off the attack, after which they flew away to continue the mission to fly around Shumshu and Paramushir.
In total, the planes made 7 approaches to the target and fired about 5000 (!) Cartridges from 50 caliber machine guns (12, 7mm) at our ships. Despite the return fire, they themselves did not receive a scratch. Since the cameras on American planes opened fire automatically, the fact of the mistaken attack was confirmed immediately after the return. It is unclear whether the matter came down to interstate notes, but senior US Pacific Fleet officials were involved in investigating the incident. In the course of it, it turned out that Lieutenant Meyer not only did not know his exact location, but also grossly violated the instructions for identifying ships (he had to make an identification pass over the target before opening fire to kill).
Thus, due to a navigation error and violation of instructions, a battle took place, people died. In Western armies, such cases are called "friendly fire".
It remained unclear what kind of plane was shot down and, in general, whether such a fact took place. Moreover, no downed twin-engined aircraft was found in that direction.
True, in the 60s on Kamchatka, near the Mutnovsky volcano, geologists really found the site of the crash of the American PV-1 Ventura bomber (w / n 31), which did not reach Petropavlovsk after being damaged during the Shumshu bombing. But it was Lieutenant W. Whitman's plane that went missing on March 23, 1944.
No other American aircraft were shot down that day. Perhaps the planes left afterburner, leaving behind a trail of smoke, which could be mistakenly recognized as the fact of hitting.
The PB4Y-2 Privatir was a naval patrol aircraft based on the B-24 Liberator bomber. It had powerful armament of 12 Browning M2 heavy machine guns and a bomb load of 5806kg. The main purpose is to fight ships and submarines. This was a very dangerous opponent. All the more the glory of our sailors-border guards, on small wooden boats withstood this unequal battle.
This was the truth of this incident. But the violations of our borders by the Americans continued afterwards. After the surrender of Japan and until the end of 1950. there were at least 46 violations involving 63 vehicles. Moreover, only from June 27, 1950. to July 16, 1950 15 violations were noted.
